To provide life support to on-board passengers and to increase the comfort within a passenger cabin, aircraft comprise an air conditioning system that guides conditioned air through a multitude of air outlets into a passenger cabin. In particular operating conditions with high outside temperatures and high ambient humidity, air conditioning packs may discharge ice that may accumulate in adjacent pipes of an air distribution system. In order to prevent pressure losses, this accumulated ice is cyclically defrosted, during which process larger ice accumulations may become detached. They comminute when impacting downstream pipe walls and at times enter the passenger cabin. The ice particles are of a size that is approximately comparable to the size of hail.
In order to prevent such a situation, it is known to use grille-shaped retention elements at appropriate locations in an air distribution system, which retention elements retain the ice particles. Due to the relatively arbitrary size distribution of the ice particles it may be observed that many ice particles pass without hindrance through the grille-shaped retention elements, or may at least partly block the apertures. A necessary maximum diameter of the apertures of a retention element for reliably retaining all the ice particles would, furthermore, cause possibly unjustifiable pressure losses in the particular air distribution system.
A further known measure to prevent the above-mentioned situation consists of individual air outlets within a passenger cabin, which are in particular affected by the passage of ice particles, to be at least partly filled with a bulked material that retains ice particles. However, this is not a satisfactory solution because the pressure loss at the respective air outlets is very considerable, and because the actual function is restricted or entirely prevented.
Accordingly, it is at least one object of the invention to propose a device for preventing the passage of ice particles from an air conditioning system to a passenger cabin of an aircraft, which device retains as reliably as possible ice particles of any size without however increasing the flow resistance of an air duct or of a corresponding air outlet. It may be a further object of the invention to propose such a device that comprises a mechanically particularly simple design and is practically maintenance free. In addition, other objects, desirable features, and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent summary and detailed description, and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background.